Cold Hard Truth
by SugarQueen93
Summary: Story takes place right after Ariana Osgood dies in the hospital in Cruel Love. Noelle and Reed sit Jasper down to tell him the truth about "Briana Leigh Covington" I DO NOT own Private or Privilege. The two series and its characters belong to Kate Brian.


Cold Hard Truth

Story takes place right after Ariana Osgood dies in the hospital in Cruel Love. Noelle and Reed sit Jasper down to tell him the truth about "Briana Leigh Covington" I DO NOT own Private or Privilege. The two series and its characters belong to **Kate Brian**.

Jasper screamed, tears streaming down his face as he clutched Ariana's lifeless hand, "No! No! Ana! Please come back!" He sobbed uncontrollably.

Reed Brennan and Noelle Lange stood quietly while watching Jasper sob hysterically.

"Ana! Ana! I love you so much! Please, come back! Come back!" He wailed.

Reed looked at Noelle before stepping toward Jasper. Jasper took his eyes off Ariana and looked at her. Reed without saying a word pulled Jasper into a hug and he continued to sob on her shoulder. Noelle stepped toward the two and placed her hand gently on Jasper's back and held it there.

"Who are you?" Reed whispered gently in Jasper's ear.

"I'm- I'm... Jasper. Who are you?" Jasper said lifting his head off Reed's shoulder to look at her.

"I'm Reed. This is my sister, Noelle. We think that…. You need to know something. About your...uh… 'Ana." Reed said gently.

"What do you mean? What do I need to know about Ana?"

"Well… who she really is for one thing. We basically think that you need to know the real truth about who you've been dating all this time." Noelle chimed in.

Jasper looked at Noelle quizzically, his eyebrows nit.

"You may need to sit down for this, Jasper. Perhaps we should go into another room…." Reed said and led Jasper and Noelle into a secluded spot in the hospital lobby. Jasper took a seat in an empty chair in the corner and Reed and Noelle took seats right across from him.

"What's going on? What's all this….?" Jasper whisper sobbed to the girls. Reed and Noelle looked at each other as if to silently ask each other, Do-you-wanna-start-or-should-I?

"Okay… well first I just want to say that I'm very sorry for you. I know you love her. That was obvious." Reed started.

"Briana Leigh Covington was the love of my life. And now she's gone." Jasper muttered to himself.

"Briana Leigh Covington? That's who she was posing as? That explains the red hair." Noelle said in her 'Noelle tone'. Reed shot Noelle a warning look as Jasper's head snapped up to look at Noelle.

"Well, she basically said it, so I'll just go from there." Reed said, referring to Noelle's revealing outburst.

"Jasper, you need to know that the girl you've been dating is not Briana Leigh Covington. Her real name is Ariana Osgood. Have you ever heard of her?" Reed said.

Jasper's mind suddenly flashed to him walking downtown with Conrad, Rob, Landon, and Palmer and seeing a headline in a newspaper of a girl with the name, Ariana Osgood. He didn't get to read the whole story, but he was able to catch the main headline. "Girl murders ex-boyfriend then tries to kill dorm mate who was dating ex-boyfriend." He remembered that her story was all over the news and the papers, though he never saw a picture of her, he didn't think any of the scandal at the time other than whoever Ariana Osgood was, she was a lunatic who needed to be thrown in prison.

"No… It can't be. It just… can't!" Jasper said coming to terms with who Ana really is.

"Her name is Ariana Osgood, and she used to go to Easton Academy with us," Reed started, "When I first came to Easton Academy, I met Thomas Pearson, which was her old flame, but I had no idea at the time. I met him before I met her or anyone else, we started dating, and never once did it seem like Ariana had a problem with that. As far as I was concerned, she and the rest of the Billings girls hated him. And they didn't approve of me dating him since I was going to pledge Billings, but I never gave them any thought…"

"Obviously." Noelle muttered. Reed shot her another look and Noelle raised her palms in mock surrender.

Reed continued, "One night, we had a party out in the woods, and Thomas was drunk out of his mind and he made a complete ass of himself and me. He left the party and I never saw him again." Reed turned to Noelle to signal her to tell the next part.

"Yeah, so… That night while Thomas was sleeping, me and a couple of girls from our dorm, not including Reed but, including Ariana woke up in the middle of the night and snuck out of our dorm and went to Thomas's. We didn't want to let him get away with how he disrespected Reed, so we busted into his dorm room and we took him and we drove him to a secluded farm house and tied him up to a pole to teach him a lesson. Before we left, we loosened the knot so that when he sobered up, he could easily break free and hitch a ride back to Easton. Only it backfired. Sometime when we were sleeping, Ariana stole a car and went back to the farm house, and I don't know what happened or what was said between the two. She never told me, but basically, when it was all said and done, Ariana took a baseball bat and bashed his head in beyond recognition. His body was left there for weeks. At first, I and my other friends thought we were responsible. That somehow, our cruel joke had gone wrong in some way…." Noelle said.

"But it was really Ariana, and I never knew about what Noelle and the others did to Thomas. They kept that from me but I found out the night Ariana tried to kill me. There was this video clip of the girls tying up Thomas and laughing on our friend, Kiran's phone that I stumbled on. I freaked out and threatened to call the police. I went up the roof of our dorm with a friend's cell phone to call the cops and Ariana followed me up there. She snatched the phone from me and told the person on the other line that I had jumped off the roof. Then she took out a knife and pointed it at my neck and told me that she loved Thomas and that I had taken him from her and that she killed him because of me. She was going to kill me too then. She tried to push me off the roof, but Noelle saved my life. She snuck up to the roof undetected and hit Ariana with a hockey stick and stalled her long enough for the police to arrive and haul her to jail. They got her confession and everything." Reed said.

"During her trial, her lawyer plead insanity and instead of Ariana doing life in prison, she was sent to Brenda T. Correctional Center, or something like that… for insane people. " Noelle put in.

Jasper was stunned into silence. The emotions of hurt, anger, betrayal and disbelief all played on his face.

"Are you alright?" Reed asked, "I know it's a shock. If you want us to stop, we will."

"No. It's just….. I just can't… believe all this." Jasper managed to get out.

"I know it's a shock. But we thought you had the right to know. Do you want us to stop now?"

"No. Keep going." He whispered. Reed stared at him, unsure if she should continue, but after a minute of silence, she did.

"I think she did about two years at Brenda T. and then some how she escaped and assumed the identity of Briana Leigh Covington. The reports said Ariana committed suicide, but now I see that was false. I think she killed the real Briana and took her identity. I don't think Ariana's parents buried or rather cremated the real Ariana, but Briana Leigh instead. That's all I know. Now you fill in the rest."

Jasper opened his mouth to speak, "She came to Atherton-Pryce Hall at the beginning of the school year-"

Noelle's jaw dropped in sheer, utter jealousy, and her soft brown eyes grew open wide. Jasper stopped to look at her. She quickly fixed herself, "Go ahead." She finally told Jasper.

He continued, "I didn't really know her at first, but I always thought she was pretty. We started dating in the fall. Everything was beautiful, but then, I remember her birthday party tonight. She'd missed almost the whole thing, and when she came back… she had blood all over the side of her and she was hurt, bad. She could hardly stand. I tried to get her to the hospital but she wouldn't let me take her. Then she told me that she was fleeing the country and she wanted me to come with her. She seemed really panicked, rushed and desperate. I told her that I'd do anything for her… but this was really sudden and she never even told me why or anything. I mean it was like she wanted me to drop what I was doing and flee the country with her and not say anything to anybody. Not my friends or my family. Just to disappear without a trace. And I was about to do it. I was going to run away with her because I love her and because she seemed so terrified… and, I just wanted to protect her. I didn't know what was going on, or how she got hurt like that. I never got an explanation. She just got in her car and sped off. To this moment I still don't know what happened."

"She snuck into my dorm a few hours ago after leaving you; I'm guessing and tried to choke me to death. I shot her in the chest for self-defense. I don't know how she found me. I always thought that she was dead. I mean when I turned around and saw her standing behind me; I thought I was seeing a ghost for a second. And then it all came to me. She never killed herself. She faked her own death so that the authorities wouldn't be searching for her anymore and she could run free. I guess she felt the need to finish me off, though I don't know why. It seemed like she got everything she wanted. So why on earth would she still try to pursue me and jeopardize that? It doesn't make sense. She should have just gone on or something, the Crazy…." Reed was going to add bitch to that but stopped herself for the sake of Jasper.

"That was crazy. I would have just gone on." Noelle said.

"Are you mad at us?" Reed asked Jasper, biting her bottom lip.

Jasper let out a great sigh, and then finally said, "No. I'm not. I'm just shocked about all of this. I can't believe that the girl I loved had been lying to me this entire time about herself."

"Yeah, but think about it. You really think that she would have told you the truth? If she had, then she'd have to kill you." Noelle said.

"Oh My God. Just like she almost did that night at the S and G Ball. I was joking with her and I told her that I knew her secret and she freaked out and she followed me into this private room and threatened me with a pair of shears. I thought she was joking. But now I realize she was serious." Jasper said, shocked, "The secret that I had heard was that she had had an affair with her teacher...If she thought that I was talking about how I knew about her, she would have stabbed me! But that night in the elevator, she told me that she was joking with the shears and that she would never hurt me."

"She lied. She would have hurt you. Slaughtered you if she thought that the secret you were talking about was the one she'd kill anybody to hide. Even you. Just like she killed Thomas. The boy she loved before you." Noelle said, "Maybe she did love you. But, not enough for you to know her deadly secret and possibly destroy her with it. If it came down to it, she would have killed you, and probably almost did with those shears. Anything to keep anybody quiet."

Jasper looked down. Tears rolling down his face once again.

"I'm sorry, Jasper. You don't know how sorry." Reed whispered.

Jasper looked up at Reed and Noelle, "Thank you. For telling me the truth about Ariana." He said Ariana harshly.

"You deserved to know. I'm sorry." Reed whispered.

"You don't need to beat yourself up. You didn't know." Noelle said, "I'm just glad she didn't hurt you. You seem like a good, sweet guy. It would have been shitty if she hurt you."

Jasper laughed bitterly, "She did hurt me. Just not physically."

"I know how you feel. Believe me. I do. But, you're gonna walk out of here, and you're gonna continue with your life, and you're gonna meet a girl who makes you smile and laugh bigger and brighter than Ariana had. You're gonna meet someone who is ten times better and you're gonna forget all about Ariana." Reed said.

"You think so?" Jasper asked.

"Yes. You're gonna go on to wonderful things and meet that one special girl that Ariana could never ever compete with."

Jasper's corner lip tagged up a bit, but eyes still sad, "I hope so." He whispered.

"I know so. I mean, when Thomas died, I felt so alone, and then I found Josh. He's my fiancé now, but he's so much better than Thomas. Nothing compares to him, and I've never been happier. That will happen for you too. You just have to believe it will and keep yourself open." Reed smiled.

Jasper stood up and Noelle and Reed followed. Jasper gave Reed a hug first and said, "Thank you so much."

"Anytime." Reed hugged him back. Then he turned and gave Noelle a hug.

"Good luck, Kid." Noelle smiled. Jasper smiled back and turned to leave the hospital. He stepped outside toward a bright dawn and a new beginning. He thought about what he was going to tell the others at APH. He didn't know if they'd believe him or not, but he still had to try. He knew that they deserved an explaination too. He felt bad for Tahira, who threw her that now pointless party. He felt bad for Maria and Soomie. He knew they were really close. He felt bad for himself. He just felt bad in general. But, of course that's normal. He'll be feeling negative for a while. Jasper just knows that he has to be strong and get over it eventually. For him, for his friends, his family and even for Reed and Noelle.


End file.
